This is the official blog of ex-Sgt Ellie Bloggs. I was a real live police constable then sergeant for twelve years, on the real live front line of England. I'm now a real live non-police person. All the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't (or didn't) pay my salary.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Newsflash from the past:

Bit busy doing some actual work this week, so here's one of my earliest posts from 12th August 2006, back in the days before I became sarcastic and cynical:

"21st Century Newsflash - Women achieve EQUALITY:

As I seem to be the only female police blogger out here at the moment (please let me know if I am wrong)*, I thought I should really talk about life as a WOMAN POLICE OFFICER.

To begin, I did some RESEARCH. You can see some of it here, here, here and here (forces chosen from a spread of the country and not very enlightening, but that is all they offer).I am one of two female officers on my shift of ten (when full strength). It's great being a woman in the police nowadays. In case you were unaware, 21st century women are EQUAL to men. It's taken us a few millennia to catch up, but at last we've done it and the view from up top is pretty fab. I am now permitted to be crewed with another female, which makes for lots of girly chatting. I am also permitted to be single-crewed, which gives me lots of chances to fight men and show how EQUAL I am. For the first time, not all female police officers are lesbians, so that makes for a much happier atmosphere of flirting and inter-colleague affairs, rather than all the nasty insults about "dykes", which are now just reserved for those women officers with short hair.As women have found it so hard and taken so long to become EQUAL, there is also lots of help out there for the woman police officer. This site is one such example, as is the British Association of Women Police. Another example is the police fitness test. In 2004 it was lowered from level 8.1 on the "bleep test", to level 5.4, and the "grip test" has now been abolished completely. This was because of campaigns such as the one reported here. Basically, people realised that women simply cannot run faster than a slow jog it's NOT POSSIBLE. They also realised that male and female police officers are equally unlikely to even get out of their station or car on the average day, and the few days per year where a chase occurs it's better to let the men win anyway as they really do love catching baddies more than us.Another way in which women are helped to stay equal is by flexible working hours. The government long since identified that most women just can't wait to have a darling little baby and many leave the force when they start a family. They are now encouraged to stay through the use of part-time hours, flexi-time, variable hours etc. Men fortunately do not have any desire to spend time with their children, and are happy to keep working night shifts and antisocial 16 hour duties throughout their family life.It's been a long struggle for us women to attain EQUALITY and we need to be well-protected. Most of my colleagues understand this and I will find myself shunted out of the way whilst running up the stairs to a flat where a man with a machete is barricaded, or the door-enforcer wrenched from my hands before I can strain my delicate back trying to force entry somewhere. Like many women, I do have a tendency to try and do things for myself, and I am grateful for the help I get from my employer in restraining this urge. A colleague of mine recently fell pregnant and she was quite rightly put in an office for 9 months creating spreadsheets for another department, as she just did not know what was good for her and the fool wanted to keep on doing her job and working towards promotion.If any of my readers (male or female) have some examples of female equality in the police, please let me know."

Copyright of PC Bloggs.* I am irked to say that more female police bloggers have appeared since this post, or at least outed their gender. Like most women, I was happy to complain about being the only one, but secretly I enjoyed it.

16 Comments:

An example of equality in the police? How about Kent Police who recently shot a woman to death, and according to the BBC reports quoting a neighbour who said the shouted police commands came from a female officer? Now it seems that when women get REALLY hacked off with each other they can KILL each other. This has previously been a male only domain in UK policing - WELL DONE, youve done away with the 'kevlar ceiling'.

20 years ago women only represented 7% of the total police force. It's now about 20%. That's better than the armed forces, building trade and other "male" jobs. On the other hand, there is still a lot more to be done - i.e. increased paternity rights, approaching people as individuals not type-cast as just man / woman. There are two problems: Currently, men make the rules and think that they are doing a good job of promoting women's issues. This will change in the next 5 - 10 years as a new generation of female decision-makers come onto the scene. Also, men don't shout loud enough to get the same family friendly policies (which is probably a cultural thing) and means that flexible working seems a bit patronising to the "little lady".

More than a quarter of police forces in England and Wales were warned last year about failing to provide crucial information on arrests, charges and convictions for a national crime database.

The Police National Computer holds important details on suspects and convicted criminals. It is also supposed to alert frontline officers that they could be dealing with dangerous suspects. Forces are expected to put details of 90 per cent of cases on the computer within 24 hours. But 13 of the 43 forces received written warnings for missing the targets last yea